Smoke

by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

‘Merci, merci,’ said the countess. ‘Allons, allons, Monsieur Fox, montrez nous ça.’

The waiter put the dish down on a little round table. There was a slight movement among the guests; several heads were craned forward; only the generals at the card-table preserved the serene solemnity of their pose. The spiritualist ruffled up his hair, frowned, and, approaching the table, began waving his hands in the air; the crab stretched itself, backed, and raised its claws. The spiritualist repeated and quickened his movements; the crab stretched itself as before.

‘Mais que doit-elle donc faire?’ inquired the countess.

‘Elle doâ rester immobile et se dresser sur sa quiou,’ replied Mr. Fox, with a strong American accent, and he brandished his fingers with convulsive energy over the dish; but the mesmerism had no effect, the crab continued to move. The spiritualist declared that he was not himself, and retired with an air of displeasure from the table. The countess began to console him, by assuring him that similar failures occurred sometimes even with Mr. Home.... Prince Kokó confirmed her words. The authority on the Apocalypse and the Talmud stealthily went up to the table, and making rapid but vigorous thrusts with his fingers in the direction of the crab, he too tried his luck, but without success; no symptom of catalepsy showed itself. Then the waiter was called, and told to take away the crab, which he accordingly did, grinning from ear to ear, as before; he could be heard exploding outside the door.... There was much laughter afterwards in the kitchen über diese Russen. The self-taught genius, who had gone on striking notes during the experiments with the crab, dwelling on melancholy chords, on the ground that there was no knowing what influence music might have—the self-taught genius played his invariable waltz, and, of course, was deemed worthy of the most flattering applause. Pricked on by rivalry, Count H., our incomparable dilettante (see Chapter I.), gave a little song of his own composition, cribbed wholesale from Offenbach. Its playful refrain to the words: ‘Quel œuf? quel bœuf?’ set almost all the ladies’ heads swinging to right and to left; one went so far as to hum the tune lightly, and the irrepressible, inevitable word, ‘Charmant! charmant!’ was fluttering on every one’s lips. Irina exchanged a glance with Litvinov, and again the same secret, ironical expression quivered about her lips.... But a little later it was still more strongly marked, there was even a shade of malice in it, when Prince Kokó, that representative and champion of the interests of the nobility, thought fit to propound his views to the spiritualist, and, of course, gave utterance before long to his famous phrase about the shock to the principle of property, accompanied naturally by an attack on democrats. The spiritualist’s American blood was stirred; he began to argue. The prince, as his habit was, at once fell to shouting at the top of his voice; instead of any kind of argument he repeated incessantly: ‘C’est absurde! cela n’a pas le sens commun!’ The millionaire Finikov began saying insulting things, without much heed to whom they referred; the Talmudist’s piping notes and even the Countess S.’s jarring voice could be heard.... In fact, almost the same incongruous uproar arose as at Gubaryov’s; the only difference was that here there was no beer nor tobacco-smoke, and every one was better dressed. Ratmirov tried to restore tranquillity (the generals manifested their displeasure, Boris’s exclamation could be heard, ‘Encore cette satanée politique!’), but his efforts were not successful, and at that point, a high official of the stealthily inquisitorial type, who was present, and undertook to present le résumé en peu de mots, sustained a defeat: in fact he so hummed and hawed, so repeated himself, and was so obviously incapable of listening to or taking in the answers he received, and so unmistakably failed to perceive himself what precisely constituted la question that no other result could possibly have been anticipated. And then too Irina was slily provoking the disputants and setting them against one another, constantly exchanging glances and slight signs with Litvinov as she did so.... But he was sitting like one spell-bound, he was hearing nothing, and waiting for nothing but for those splendid eyes to sparkle again, that pale, tender, mischievous, exquisite face to flash upon him again.... It ended by the ladies growing restive, and requesting that the dispute should cease.... Ratmirov entreated the dilettante to sing his song again, and the self-taught genius once more played his waltz....

Litvinov stayed till after midnight, and went away later than all the rest. The conversation had in the course of the evening touched upon a number of subjects, studiously avoiding anything of the faintest interest; the generals, after finishing their solemn game, solemnly joined in it: the influence of these statesmen was at once apparent. The conversation turned upon notorieties of the Parisian demi-monde, with whose names and talents every one seemed intimately acquainted, on Sardou’s latest play, on a novel of About’s, on Patti in the Traviata. Some one proposed a game of ‘secretary,’ au secrétaire; but it was not a success. The answers given were pointless, and often not free from grammatical mistakes; the stout general related that he had once in answer to the question: Qu’est-ce que l’amour? replied, Une colique remontée au cœur, and promptly went off into his wooden guffaw; the ancient ruin with a mighty effort struck him with her fan on the arm; a flake of plaster was shaken off her forehead by this rash action. The old crone was beginning a reference to the Slavonic principalities and the necessity of orthodox propaganda on the Danube, but, meeting with no response, she subsided with a hiss. In reality they talked more about Home than anything else; even the ‘Queen of the Wasps’ described how hands had once crept about her, and how she had seen them, and put her own ring on one of them. It was certainly a triumph for Irina: even if Litvinov had paid more attention to what was being said around him, he still could not have gleaned one single sincere saying, one single clever thought, one single new fact from all their disconnected and lifeless babble. Even in their cries and exclamations, there was no note of real feeling, in their slander no real heat. Only at rare intervals under the mask of assumed patriotic indignation, or of assumed contempt and indifference, the dread of possible losses could be heard in a plaintive whimper, and a few names, which will not be forgotten by posterity, were pronounced with gnashing of teeth ... And not a drop of living water under all this noise and wrangle! What stale, what unprofitable nonsense, what wretched trivialities were absorbing all these heads and hearts, and not for that one evening, not in society only, but at home too, every hour and every day, in all the depth and breadth of their existence! And what ignorance, when all is said! What lack of understanding of all on which human life is built, all by which life is made beautiful!

On parting from Litvinov, Irina again pressed his hand and whispered significantly, ‘Well? Are you pleased? Have you seen enough? Do you like it?’ He made her no reply, but merely bowed low in silence.

Left alone with her husband, Irina was just going to her bedroom.... He stopped her.

‘Je vous ai beaucoup admirée ce soir, madame,’ he observed, smoking a cigarette, and leaning against the mantelpiece, ‘vous vous êtes parfaitement moquée de nous tous.’

‘Pas plus cette fois-ci que les autres,’ she answered indifferently.